News Release

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

LAPD Develops Guidelines to Improve Interactions with Transgender Individuals New Procedures to Be Discussed at Special Community Forum NR12169rf

Los Angeles: Tomorrow evening at 6 p.m., LAPD Chief Charlie Beck will host a community forum along with Los Angeles Police Commissioners and LAPD Command Staff to introduce new Department guidelines for police interactions with transgender individuals. The new procedures are designed to promote greater understanding and ensure police contacts with the transgender community are professional, respectful and courteous.

Guidelines for the new procedures will be disseminated at the forum and will include an overview of what is considered respectful treatment (e.g., appropriate language, acknowledgment of an individual’s preferred gender identity and expression, respect for privacy, detailed standards for conducting field searches, and the importance of not making the assumption a transgender person is involved in prostitution).

Additional topics of discussion will include new revisions to the LAPD Jail Operations Manual that improve the processing, housing, custody and protection of transgender inmates.

Tomorrow’s 6 p.m. meeting, formally known as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Community Forum, will be held in Los Angeles at the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Plaza. Also joining city officials and LGBT community leaders will be representatives from Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa’s Office, the Human Relations Commission‘s Transgender Working Group, and Valerie Jenness, Ph.D., Dean and Professor of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, who worked very closely with the LAPD to develop these new guidelines.

More information is available by contacting Sergeant Karen Leong, Office of the Chief of Police, at 213-486-6032 or Senior Lead Officer Alessandra Moura, Community Relations Section, at 213-486-6009.